Observations, reviews and interviews of Dom Romeo, Professional Nerd

It's been a pleasure seeing and hearing him regularly on Rove and radio, (not to mention his regular turn as Strauchanie), but it's been a few years since Peter Helliar has properly graced a stand-up stage - although the 2007 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala is a nice gig to have remembered as your last before taking a break to make a feature film. Back, if not with a vengeance, then at least with a new bunch of stand-up, Pete's playing the Sydney Opera House from Jan 5th with his Dreamboat Tour. In the meantime, here's an interview from a Sydney visit ages ago. It is from a time when Merrick & Rosso ruled drivetime radio with their shift on Triple J, and if it's too long ago for you to remember, rest assured, it seems like a life time ago for me, too. But even at the time, it felt like a particularly golden age of Oz comedy - Tripod appearing regularly with Peter on Merrick & Rosso's Triple J show. I know one day people will look back at a golden period just ended, when Ben Ellwood and Dave Jory would appear regularly on Dools's drivetime show. As it happens, Dools is now hosting Breakfast at Nova with Merrick Watts, all of which deserve a whole other bunch of blogs... for now, here's an early interview with Peter Helliar.

For Pete's Sake

“I saw Greg Fleet at the Comedy
Club in Melbourne when I was 15 and I thought that that would be a kind of cool
thing to do,” Peter Helliar offers as explanation of his comedic inspiration. “That, of course, was when I thought everyone was making huge amounts of money doing comedy.”

A deep desire to perform, too many beers, boisterous mates
and the refusal to “get a proper job” actually led Helliar to adopt this ‘cool’
way of life. Eventually.

“It took me a good seven years to get off to it,” he admits, having opted for travel after finishing school. In fact, Helliar almost
worked up enough nerve to have a go at comedy overseas: “I was in London and
thought, ‘maybe I’ll try here, where I won’t be humiliated in front of people I know.” The London debut never eventuated. Helliar instead returned to
Australia where he finally got up on stage to start telling jokes at
Melbourne’s legendary Espy comedy club (in St Kilda's Esplanade Hotel). “The rest,” Peter assures me, “is
history. Not an awfully interesting history, but a history nonetheless.”
Helliar finishes his story by revealing just how huge the amounts of money to
be made in comedy are: “The harsh reality is that it’s only a couple of million
a year.”

Only a couple, Peter?

“Um. Slightly less.”

Although he’s only been joking for the last two and a half
years, Peter has been to Sydney about six or seven times. However, if you have
yet to see him live, you may be more familiar with the contributions he
regularly makes to Merrick and Rosso’s Triple J drivetime slot as Peter Helliar, PI.
Merrick Watts and Peter Helliar were already familiar with each other by the
time Helliar had started making with the funny business; they’d been introduced
by a mutual friend. However, a “mutual admiration society” quickly developed
between Helliar and the grouse duo, Merrick and Rosso soon inviting Peter along
to fill the support slot at their Christmas and grand final shows in Melbourne.

“They were the first people who could give me a real break,”
Peter acknowledges.

Recognising, no doubt, a kindred spirit as well as talent,
Merrick and Rosso continued to send breaks in Peter’s direction. Last year they
asked him to contribute to Hair of the Dog, the Triple J Sunday slot they were then filling while Roy and HG were overseas. When they had landed the
drivetime shift, they likewise brought him on board.

Merrick and Rosso left Pete's exact role on the show pretty much up to him; their first question was, ‘do you have
any ideas?’ Peter confessed to harbouring only the one and it involved him
being “a ‘PI’ kind of guy,” mainly because the idea of ‘a race against time’
appealed. Thus, each week, Peter pits his wits against all manner of challenges
within certain time constraints, for the entertainment of the Triple
J-listening masses.

“It opens itself up to so many different possibilities,” he
explains, “from tracking various people down to professing my love to certain
people to singing songs like the one I did with Steven Gates from Tripod
recently.” Part of the attraction that such a role held was that it would be so
different; it would not require Helliar to either pen ten minutes of new
material or use up dependable chunks of his stage show each week.

In his capacity as ‘Peter Helliar, PI’ Peter has established
a very good track record, having ‘failed his mission’ only once, and even then,
under “reasonably dubious” circumstances.

“I had to write a poem about the town of Orange, NSW, to the
tune of ‘The Man from Snowy River’. ‘Orange’ had to rhyme four times within
that poem. For those who don’t know, ‘Orange’ is one of few English words that
has no rhyme.”

Geez, I offer, if that’s the only time you’ve failed, don’t
be too hard on yourself. It was a pretty hard ask to begin with.

“Oh, thanks mate,” Peter replies, “but I do strive for a one
hundred percent record.”

It appears that the “other hiccup” Peter Helliar, PI
encountered involved Olympics commentator Bruce McAvaney. “We wanted Bruce to sing ‘Islands in the
Stream’ because I’m a big fan of Bruce’s work. He refused. But Matthew White
from Sports Tonight was great enough to step in and take over the mantle and he
loved it.”

According to Peter, Sydney crowds often emanate “the right
kind of vibes” for comedians who would otherwise avoid trying out fresh
material. Thus, Helliar’s Sydney shows will be an amalgam of his recent
Melbourne Comedy Festival show, This Much is True, and what will eventually
become next year’s Comedy Festival piece.

“Just on the topic of this year’s show, This Much is True,
Peter,” I ask. “How much of it was actually true?”

“Three percent,” Peter answers without pausing.

“That’s pretty good,” I acknowledge. “There are
reconstitutedorange fruit drinks that
cannot boast as high a content of actual orange juice." And it's certainly greater than the comic's - or, let's face it, anyone's - hit rate at rhyming the town Orange in a parody of 'Man From Snowy River'...

Max Cavalera*Tiny snippet of an interview with the Sepultura/Soulfly guitarist that appeared in full in an issue of Live to Ride. (Quite recently, if you’re reading this blurb before I wrote it and put it online…)

My Podcasts

Dedicated comedy showcase featuring live stand-up, interviews, a weekly gig guide and classic comedy clips. Hosted by Dom Romeo and a different guest comedian each week. Some episodes have been transcribed. Show ceased production at the end of 2006, replaced by Stand & Deliver.

Songs of a Misspent Youth

From Beginning To EndThe first real Psychedelic Spew song… originally perpetrated on a Sharp three-in-one hifi stereo system whose pause button was miraculously in perfect alignment with the record and erase heads; that mastertape is long gone. This time round, I [mis]used ProTools.

No Wucken FurriesTheme to a derivative, undergraduate, university sketch comedy show, some of which was actually video taped...